Regenerative aikido, anyone?

Affective polarisation is one of the most pernicious forces in society today. Even if you’ve never heard the term before, you’ve doubtless seen it at work in your social media feeds. It describes people’s tendency not just to disagree vehemently with others who hold different views, but to believe those others must be stupid — even evil — to hold them.

Of course, this phenomenon — amplified by social media algorithms — is catnip to populists. It’s what they seek to stoke by reducing complex issues to simplistic binary choices, usually accompanied by the rallying cry of “You’re either with us or against us!”

Lest anyone infer that I consider myself immune from such tendencies, I’m most certainly not. I’ve been known to chuck a sarcastic metaphorical rock from time to time and, I admit, it can feel highly therapeutic. But I’m working on it. Partly because that’s not the sort of person I want to be, but perhaps more importantly, because implying someone’s dumb for thinking or acting the way they do has never been an effective strategy for changing their mind!

So, where does aikido come in and what’s the connection to regeneration? Bear with me and, hopefully, all will become clear…

Hands up who feels in control right now

Let’s take that doozy of a polarising slogan, ‘Take back control’. Used repeatedly and relentlessly during the 2016 Brexit campaign, it became a lightning rod for disaffection — an artfully vague headline under which to file all manner of grievances with the political establishment, not just the EU. Albeit never clearly defined or elaborated upon, it captured (for many) an alluring sense of a positive future, rooted in greater self-determination.

Sitting now, as we do, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, and the fallout of months of (at least partially self-inflicted) political and economic turmoil, it’s tempting to ask how much real ‘control’ people feel they’ve actually gained. Aren’t we as powerless as ever we were, for example, to curb the inflationary effects of war in Ukraine, or to see that the resulting excessive profits of global oil and gas companies are somehow meaningfully redistributed to low-income citizens, who are now forced to choose between heating and eating? Haven’t we been sold the illusion of control, rather than anything truly real and meaningful?

Attempting to argue such points, though, is to walk the already well-trodden and futile path of trying to convince people they were duped. Essentially an attack on their beliefs and identity, it’s a line of argument that will always be destined to fail.

But what if we took a different tack?

From polarisation to unified energy

Originally developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy and religious beliefs, aikido is essentially non-violent. Often translated as ‘the way of unifying (with) life energy’ or as ‘the way of harmonious spirit’, it seeks to provide practitioners with a means to defend themselves while also protecting their opponents from injury. To that end, one of its central principles — ‘tenkan’ (turning) — involves movements that redirect an opponent’s momentum.

What if we used this as a guiding analogy? What if our goal was not to leave opponents feeling ‘defeated’, but to redirect the energy of their arguments, channelling debate toward a place of unified energy? If that all sounds a tad too spiritual for your tastes, consider where this could conceivably lead…

Let’s start from the premise that ‘taking back control’ expresses a positive emotion — not a racist, anti-immigration dog whistle, but first and foremost an entirely reasonable and justifiable desire, among people who feel that the forces of globalised, neoliberal capitalism have left them behind.

And while any notion of ‘control’ sits rather uncomfortably with what we know about the behaviour of complex adaptive systems, let’s consider it a proxy for agency. Along with ideas of self-reliance, self-organisation and self-determination, reclaiming agency is fundamentally about feeling that we’re able to make our own choices and manage our own lives, as opposed to feeling that they are centrally controlled by the whims of others. (I’m pretty sure that most of us — regardless of our stance on Brexit — could agree that more of those feelings would be a good thing.)

Power to the people

Accepting these caveats, now let’s reflect on ways that those ideas and principles might be made more real and tangible, taking the thorny issue of energy as an illustrative example. How would it feel to have real agency where the production and use of energy is concerned? What would it look like to literally restore power to the people?

Unsurprisingly, I reckon it would look a lot like a more regenerative paradigm — place-based, community-owned, radically decentralised and entirely based on renewables.

Unquestionably the route to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for the 733m people who still lack access to electricity today, it’s a desirable direction of travel in higher income countries too, as evidenced by the plethora of community energy projects that have already sprung up all over the place, especially in Europe. In simple terms, these projects typically involve communities establishing cooperatives to install renewable power and storage systems, which then not only allow all members of those communities to get their energy at a fair price, but also grant them decision-making power about how and where to invest proceeds.

Such models are pretty much a textbook example of ‘empowered participation’ — one of eight principles of regenerative economics outlined by John Fullerton and the Capital Institute — which emphasises both the ability for people to negotiate for their own needs and to add their unique contribution toward the health and wellbeing of the larger wholes in which they are embedded. Such models are also nothing new. In fact, one of the most famous examples — in Sch?nau, Germany — traces its origin story back to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

What does feel new, however (at least to me), is this idea of flipping the script on a populist narrative and redirecting its energy, thereby helping to build unstoppable momentum behind the rapid scaling of a new paradigm. Eschewing division and confrontation in favour of searching for and acting upon common ideals, it’s an approach that feels true to Bucky Fuller’s famous exhortation not to fight the existing system, but to unite behind building a new one that renders the old one obsolete.

What other stories might we flip?

Am I alone in thinking this? If not and you think there’s something in this, what other examples might we think of? How else might people’s avowed desire for greater agency and self-determination become a positive force for other vital transitions (e.g., in food and agriculture)? What other populist narratives, designed to sow division (e.g., migration), could instead be reframed as motivation to act faster in tackling the interconnected challenges of climate change and social inequality?

When the interconnected crises we face demand rapid, systemic responses — in turn requiring us to focus on what unites us, rather than what divides us — that’s surely worth exploring, isn’t it?